


ruin and stone

by orphan_account



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Bonding, Daddy Issues, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Injury, Prison, Sex for Favors, Sickfic, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 07:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20849810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Caine watches skeptically. There are dirty boot prints all over his clothes, evidence of kicking. For a heartbeat the stiff way he’s moving makes Caine think he might’ve been through more than a beatdown. But it’s not as if she cares, either way.“So what did a shrimpy little whelp like you do to get thrown in here?”The kid turns to her and a smug grin stretches his freckly, goofy face from ear to ear.“Oh, I kidnapped Queen Arianna.”





	ruin and stone

**Author's Note:**

> Because Lady Caine deserved more humanizing backstory and screentime and also, my friend is hardcore into Varian whump. Here you go, buddy, our two desires rolled into one.

Caine is drowsing lightly on the splintery bunk, in and out of wakefulness when the loud jangle of metal keys abruptly disperses the possibility of falling back into a sounder sleep. She rolls over and blinks blearily, interest perking as a guard gruffly yanks open the cell door.

Caine snaps up like her body’s on autopilot, primed for the slightest chance for escape. She lunges forward only to collide with the scrawny body the guard practically throws at her. Caine fiercely shoves them away without a second thought, but it’s too late. The distraction gave the guard the time he needed and the cell door slams shut in her face.

Caine scowls, kicking at the bars in frustration. A quiet cough draws her attention back to the new occupant of the cell. Caine wheels around and looks him over as he pulls himself up to his hands and knees.

And wow, that a pathetic specimen he is. A shrimpy kid, no more than fourteen or so, greasy black hair hanging over a bloodied face. He looks like he’s eaten a couple of fists for breakfast, one eye swollen shut and plum dark purple. His nose is ringed with crimson crust and crooked, probably broken. A split cuts through his upper lip.

“Well, what happened to you?”

The kids blinks up at her with his uninjured, baby blue eye.

“They, um, beat me up in holding.”

Caine chuckles and leans back against the bars. “The guards must really hate you to put you in here with me. I kicked the crap out of those pansies in holding without breaking a nail.”

The kid’s gaze hardens, a measuring look falling across his face. He’s intelligent, at least, trying to figure out whether or not she’s a threat.

“I won’t bite if you don’t give me a reason to,” Caine offers, calmly shrugging her shoulders.

The kid sniffles and tiredly wipes his nose on his glove.

“You sick?” Caine raises a brow.

“No,” he mutters, but the quiet catch in his throat makes her think he is.

“Just try to keep your snot over there.”

“Not sick,” he insists, groping at the wall for support as he slowly pulls himself up.

Caine watches skeptically. There are dirty boot prints all over his clothes, evidence of kicking. For a heartbeat the stiff way he’s moving makes Caine think he might’ve been through more than a beatdown. But when she takes a peek at the seat of his pants, there aren’t any bloodstains, so maybe not. It’s not as if she cares, either way.

“So what did a shrimpy little whelp like you do to get thrown in here?”

The kid turns to her and a smug grin stretches his freckly, goofy face from ear to ear.

“Oh, I kidnapped Queen Arianna.”

* * *

Caine watches the kid— Varian —during the night. There isn’t much else to do in a cramped box of a room. He’s definitely coming down with something, his breath rough and labored with congestion. Now and then he whimpers for his father in his sleep.

If he’s telling the truth about what he’s done, then he’s actually far more impressive than meets the eye. Far more dangerous too. Caine is leaning toward believing him. It seems like a story too wild to make up, the details so vivid. Even if Varian is lying about kidnapping the queen, he’s shrewd enough to make a damn convincing story.

He’s a bright one, all right, kid or not. Caine doesn’t usually like to keep the bright ones around. She prefers pawns to partners, puppets she can pull the strings on to tip everything in her favor. She can’t trust the bright ones not to turn on her.

But she doesn’t exactly have her choice pick of allies at the moment, does she?

Caine peers at Varian across the minute gap between their bunks, mapping out his features under the dim flicker of the torchlight in the corridor. He mumbles something about his father again, pleading, discomfort twisting his face.

It’s in this moment Caine decides she’s going to help this kid.

And it has everything to do with the fact Caine has grown mind-numbingly bored trapped inside these four walls without any kind of stimulation beyond etching into the stone. It has everything to do with the fact her prior pawns are gone now and she’ll have to settle for what’s at hand.

It has nothing at all to do with the fact that she remembers when she too, was this hurt, shrimpy kid crying for a dad who wasn’t there. If watching Varian stirs up some of these memories, it’s nothing to her to squash them like the centipedes that creep through the cracks in the floor. Caine abandoned that kind of sentimentality a long time ago.

* * *

“Where does it hurt?” she asks in the morning.

“Huh?” Varian balks at her, unaware of the sticky green bead of snot dangling from his nostril.

“From when you got beat up, silly boy,” Caine huffs, rolling her eyes.

“Oh— oh.” Varian belatedly notices he’s leaking mucus, and wipes it away. “Why do you care?”

“Okay, so I didn’t exactly give you the warmest welcome yesterday,” Caine admits. “That’s on me. I can’t say I’ve been in the best of moods since I got locked in this shit hole. But we’re stuck here together now, so we might as well try to help each other out.”

Varian stares at her skeptically. “Why the sudden change of tune?”

“I had a night to think about whether or not you’re telling the truth about kidnapping the queen. I’ve decided you are, and I commend you for it. Believe me kid, I feel no love for that loathsome royal family. They’re the reason I’m in here too.”

Varian gives an uncertain hum.

“Hey,” Caine throws out casually. “We don’t have to be friends, the choice is yours. But it’s no party in here and the chances of making it through look a lot better when somebody else has got your back.”

“I know what manipulation sounds like,” Varian says with an chilling edge of ice despite the thickness of congestion in his voice. “I am very good at it.”

Caine huffs and dismissively swats her hand.

“I’m not manipulating you. You have nothing I want. The way I see this is this; it gets boring in here very fast and the least we can do is help each other pass the time. I’m trying to be nice, no more, no less.”

Varian chews at his lip, consideration glinting in his gaze.

“You can’t be any worse than the other so-called friends I had before,” he mutters.

“That’s the spirit,” Caine sarcastically claps her hands together. “So what do you say we play doctor?”

“I don’t think there’s much you can do to help,” he sighs, sniffling up what sounds like a flood of snot.

Sometimes she forgets how gross kids are.

“Indulge me.”

“My ribs are pretty bad,” Varian admits quietly.

“Let’s take a look.” Caine goes over and perches next to him on the bunk.

Varian slips the apron off easily enough but when he has more trouble with the shirt. When he grips the hem and starts to pull, pain flashes across his face. He clenches his teeth but a hiss slips out anyway.

“Hurt your arm too?” Caine guesses, noting the chary, halting motion of the attempt.

“Wrist,” he mumbles.

“Okay, then let’s look at that first.”

Varian pinches the end of his glove and carefully tugs it off.

“Ouch,” Caine remarks. “Think it’s broken?”

She’s mildly impressed by how stoic the kid is. She wasn’t heard a whine out of him since he got tossed in here, but it looks serious. Outside the confines of the glove his wrist balloons, fingers as fat as sausage links from the swelling. The deep violet bruising mirrors the boot prints on his clothes.

“I can bend my fingers,” he offers hopefully, giving the digits what’s clearly a pained flex.

Caine gets up and fetches the tattered sheet from her bunk. She rips off a sizable strip and kneels in front Varian, motioning for his hand. He hesitates for a moment, sniffs up some more leaky mucus, and extends it to her grasp.

“Let me know if it’s too tight,” she murmurs, beginning to wrap it up. “It should offer support, but it shouldn’t feel painful.”

“I think it’s going to be painful either way,” he says sheepishly.

Caine smirks but continues, layering the makeshift bandage up his wrist.

“You should learn how to fight, you know.”

“I know how to fight,” he insists.

“With robots and potions,” Caine says pointedly.

“Those robots and potions got me closer to my revenge than a sword got you to yours,” Varian declares, lifting his chin.

“I never said you didn’t have a valuable skill set, but it’s not a skill set that you’re going to be able to rely on all the time. You should learn hand-to-hand.”

“I suppose you’re gonna teach me?” Varian scoffs.

“Don’t be sassy,” Caine rebukes lightly. “I mean it. We’ve got nothing but time in here, kid. We might as well be productive with it.”

Varian tucks a sneeze into the crook of his elbow and watches warily as she finishes bandaging, snugly tying the ends of the strips.

“I can’t be here forever.”

Caine stands and stretches, her back popping quietly. If this kid got as close to killing the queen as he claims, he’s lucky they didn’t drag him off to the guillotine.

“I hear that, so if you’ve got any escape plans up your sleeve, do tell.”

“I’ll think of something,” he says seriously, like a knight swearing fealty. “I have to, I’ve got to save my dad.”

And in his voice, she hears the ghost of herself ten years earlier, the drive and desperation so familiar she can taste it. And maybe, maybe five years ago an echo like that could’ve given her pause. Today Caine impassively looks to the wall, sweeping her eyes over the collection of tallies scraped in granite.

“Tell me about him,” she hums idly.

“Where to start…” Varian blows out a wistful sigh and combs back his bangs. “He’d be really, really disappointed to see me here. I’m good at that. Disappointing him.”

“Well he’d have to be at least a little proud that you had the balls to storm the castle and snatch the queen. Especially since you did it for him.”

The lashes on Varian’s good eye flutter. “I…I’m the one who put him in danger in the first place.”

Caine sits on the kid’s bunk again and yanks up the hem of his shirt without any warning, wringing a startled squawk out of him. The flesh beneath is mottled with a collage of hideous bruises, darkest around his narrow ribcage. Like eggplants smashed against his skin. She plants a hand against his ribs and he lets out another affronted squawk.

“Jeez! Your hands are cold!”

Caine firmly presses her hand along each rib, feeling for any shift of bone and monitoring his reaction. He’s bearing it stoically but she can see pain rut into the scrunch of his features and the rigid set of his posture.

“Can you take a full breath?”

“I can,” Varian confirms, grimacing. “I don’t exactly want to.”

“How about we test how deep you can go?”

A quick head shake. “They’re pretty sore.”

Caine agreeably draws her hand away.

“If you did break any, they probably aren’t bad breaks. So there goes that escape plan.”

“Escape plan?” Varian blinks owlishly.

Caine smirks. “The guards don’t open the cell for much, but they would if you were drowning in your own blood.”

Varian pales, his nose crinkling in distaste. “Gotta say, that one’s not exactly my ideal escape plan.”

“You hurting anywhere else, kid?”

“Not really,” he says, tongue giving a brief, nervous swipe over his lip.

* * *

Dinner is lumpy, cold gruel and a stale, slightly moldy roll. Caine scrapes the green fuzz off the roll with her thumbnail, peeking at Varian out the corner of her eye. He’s staring skeptically down at his tray, poking the gruel with his spoon.

“You should eat,” she suggests, nibbling at her roll.

“This isn’t food,” Varian replies, more incredulous than petulant.

“Not quite,” Caine agrees, “but it’s all you’re gonna get and you need to keep your strength up in here.”

“How’s it taste?” he asks.

“Awful,” she deadpans. “I guess the upside to having a cold is that you won’t be able to taste it anyway.”

She’s noticed the minor ailment progress in him over the course of the day, the thickening of his voice as the congestion worsens and the cherry red brightening of his nose as it grows increasingly irritated.

“I don’t have a—“ he breaks off mid sentence, snapping forward in a forceful sneeze.

“Gesundheit,” Cain chimes, somewhat teasingly.

“Ugh.” Varian gives a rueful sniff. “Why is this happening right now?”

“When it rains it pours, I guess.” Caine finishes off the roll. “Really, eat your food. If you leave scraps behind, it attracts the rats.”

Varian sighs but dutifully spoons up a helping of gruel and shoves it into his mouth. Caine finishes her own and gets up to do some lunges. In prison, exercise is just as much entertainment as it is maintenance. When she’s through with her sets of lunges, she dusts her hands on her pants and gets on the floor to do some push-ups to the background sounds of Varian’s eating and noisy breathing.

“Hey, Caine?”

“That’s Lady Caine to you, child.”

Varian makes an indignant noise in his throat and as Caine pushes upward from the floor, she turns over her shoulder and gives him a level look. They aren’t equals. She’ll play nice because there’s nothing else to do in this godforsaken box of a place and his allegiance could come in handy down the line, but she intends to have his respect.

“I’ll address you as Lady Caine if you stop calling me a child. Deal?”

“You are a ch—“

“What I am, is an alchemist,” he breaks in, vehement flare in his eye. “And I have a name.”

Caine contemplates, lowers herself to a hairsbreadth off the floor, exhales, and rises again.

“Alright, Varian,” she concedes. “What’d you wanna ask?”

“What are all those marks on the wall?”

Caine follows his gaze to her tallies.

“Ah,” she purrs. “One mark for every kill I’ve ever made.”

She gets a kick watching his face drain of color, the cheeky twerp from ten seconds ago immediately subdued.

“I’m kidding,” she laughs. “They’re just the days I’ve been here.”

“Oh, oh,” he titters, heaving a sigh of relief. He gives another sniffle and brusquely wipes at his nose. “Wow. You’ve been here awhile.”

“An astute observation, oh wise alchemist.” Caine pops her lips.

Varian rolls his uninjured eye, but he doesn’t look put out. If anything, he seems more lively than he’s been since he got thrown in here.

“Can I borrow your rock?”

“Sure.” Caine does one last push-up and fetches it from under her bunk, tossing it over to him.

Varian jerks upward to catch it, a sudden motion his battered body clearly doesn’t appreciate. He winces and goes rigid, teeth snagging at his bottom lip.

“Whoops. Probably should’ve handed it to you. You okay?”

Varian doesn’t look okay, but he nods all the same and picks up the rock. He begins scribbling on the wall, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth as he concentrates. Caine sits on the edge of her bunk and watches, tilting her head.

“What are those?”

“Just some formulaic equations I’ve been thinking about. I can’t actually experiment right now, but you know. It’s good to write this stuff down.”

Caine doesn’t understand any of it, but she supposes it’s a good distraction at least. 

* * *

She watches Varian during the night again, listens to his stuffy snores and the soft, heartbroken cries for his dad. She wonders if he realizes he does this. If she’d have to guess, she would think not.

In any case, she won’t ask. It’s none of her business.

* * *

Her business isn’t any of Varian’s either, but the kid peppers her with question after curious question over the course of the next couple days. He’s probably bored, Caine figures, and she’s his only outlet for killing loneliness in a cold, dark cubicle.

It’s a tad annoying, but she’s dealt with far worse than a talkative kid. She’ll put up with it before she alienates him.

* * *

“Do your tattoos mean something, or are they decorative?”

“A little bit of both,” she answers.

“My dad has a tattoo,” he says, absently rubbing under his streaming nose. “On his hand. It means something, I think. But he won’t tell me what.”

Caine’s father also had a tattoo. No, plural, tattoos. He had more than one, she believes. The truth of the matter is that she forgets what he looked like a little more each day. She doesn’t remember what his tattoos were of, or where they were located.

She likes to think they were on his upper arms. She likes to think that’s why she chose her upper arm to be inked, when she could’ve just as easily chosen her thigh, or chest, or back.

“What makes you think it means something?” she asks, getting into a plank position.

“For starters, it looks like a symbol,” Varian replies, face drawn in thought, “not just some artsy design. There’s the way he is about it, too. He wears his gloves all the time and he doesn’t like to let me see it. I’ve asked him about it before, but I’ve never gotten a straight answer.”

“That’s a bummer.” Caine breathes out, holds her position steady.

“I just wish he trusted me.” Varian deflates a little, shoulders slumping. A booger rope he doesn’t notice stretches thin until the gooey thread breaks and drops to his apron.

* * *

“Lady Caine?”

“Hm?”

“Where’d you get your necklace?”

“An old lover,” she murmurs, idly skimming her fingertip over the skull charm as a gossamer image of Rosalie’s wicked grin unfurls in her mind’s eye.

“What was he like?” Varian tips his head.

“She was quick on feet and devilish in the sheets,” Caine describes, smirking as a vibrant blush colors Varian’s cheek.

He bashfully clears his throat. “O-Oh…”

“She lived fast, died young.”

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,” Varian says softly, gaze wavering. He looks very much like a dejected puppy that got left out in the rain.

“Eh, don’t be.” Caine gives a dismissive wave. “My Rosalie got lucky. She bit the dust before she could ever end up here. She never had to know prison, never spent a single day of her life rotting in a cage like this.”

To her great surprise, Varian rises from his bunk and crosses the minute gap to hers. He sits beside Caine and rubs her back. She’s sure it’s meant to be consoling but she’s so taken off guard, all she can do is keep herself from gaping like a bass.

Varian takes her stunned silence in stride and just keeps talking himself.

“I’ve never had a lover. I, um, cared about a girl once. I made her an element and I made her a necklace out of her element, and everything…but I guess it didn’t mean anything to her. I’m sure it would mean a lot to— to your Rosalie that you still wear the necklace she gave you.”

Caine almost tells him that he’s misunderstood, that in reality, the necklace was not a gift from Rosalie, but something the tortured teen Caine was a lifetime ago hastily grabbed from her freshly cooled corpse, just to have something, to have any piece of her to hang onto.

But then he sneezes, so Caine tells him, “Bless you,” instead.

* * *

“Do you bake?”

“Do I, what?” Caine stops mid-squat to arch a brow.

“You know, baking and cooking food.” And the smile he gives her is kind of teasing, lighthearted glint in his eyes.

Or rather, eye and a half. The injured one isn’t swollen shut anymore but the swelling hasn’t completely disappeared. It can only open a slit.

“I don’t normally do that, no.” Caine answers.

She’s either in prison or on the run. In prison she doesn’t have the freedom to cook. When she’s on the run, she simply doesn’t have the time. She eats at taverns or hires crewman who cook for her.

“I could teach you some time,” he says brightly. “It could be like a trade-off since you’re gonna teach me to fight.”

Caine resumes her squats. “How do you suppose you’ll teach me any of that in here?”

“I mean, okay, so no, we don’t have any ingredients or cookware to work with,” he admits. “But I could write out some recipes for you. Or I could teach you after we escape.”

Caine pauses and she’s not sure if it’s the notion of escaping or the presumption that they won’t part ways upon escaping that throws her off.

“That big brain of yours finally hatch us a plan?”

“None that would actually work, thus far,” he mutters, demeanor dimming. “But I’m not giving up.”

“Of course not, you’re not the type,” she says earnestly, giving him a wink.

The kid beams, brightening up again.

“What’s the first thing you’d want to bake?”

“Mm, something sweet. Maybe cake?”

Varian balks, a weird look crossing his face.

“What?” Caine puzzles. “Bad choice?”

“No…just memories, I guess.” He gives himself a shake. “I’m pretty good at cake. Even better at cookies.”

* * *

Caine hears it, more or less, when the cold works its way down to his chest. His nasal congestion clears, but he sounds hoarse and has to keep clearing his throat. Looks vaguely uncomfortable, though he doesn’t breathe a complaint. The kid’s a chatterbox, not a whiner, and the lack of the latter makes the former much easier to tolerate.

The coughing isn’t a symptom that crops up until the night, a racket that rouses her out of a dream. A nice dream too, one where she’s out of this box and conquering the high seas. She can nearly taste the salt in the air, and then she’s abruptly yanked awake by a nasty fit of hacking.

Caine rolls over but she can’t ignore it. In between coughs, Varian makes a noise like a small animal getting kicked. When she looks over, he’s clutching his side and then she remembers, oh, shit. His ribs. Even if not badly broken, they could very well be cracked and at the least, they’re bruised.

“You okay over there?”

Varian tucks his face into his shoulder to bury the coughs, still in the thick of the fit, unable to answer. Caine sighs and gets to her feet, shuffling to the cell door.

“Hey, you!” She whistles at the guard at the end of the hall.

He ignores her, doesn’t even turn around, so Caine snatches a small rock and reaches between the bars, throwing it at his head. It bounces off the metal helmet with a loud clink. The guard wheels around, scowling dangerously.

“Would it kill you to get this kid a drink of water?” Caine demands.

The guard turns, acknowledges her with only a glower, and turns around again. So Caine picks up another rock and throws it even harder than she threw the first one.

“That wasn’t a rhetorical question!”

Another glower.

“I have more rocks!”

And Varian keeps coughing, all the way through their silent stare down like a lung’s about to come up.

The guard cedes to her threat and marches over with an air of distaste, slipping a waterskin from a loop on his belt. He begrudgingly passes it through the bars and Caine hurriedly snatches it before he can change his mind. She eases Varian up as carefully as she can, doing her best to mind his injuries. When he lets out a whimper she hopes it’s nothing she did. She props him against her and pushes the waterskin into his hand.

“Come on, Varian, get your breath back. Take a sip.”

The coughs work themselves out but it takes him a minute or so to uncurl, clutching at his offended ribs as he tries to catch his breath without inhaling too deep. Caine opts to keep supporting him instead of returning to her own bunk.

“Thank you,” Varian croaks.

Blue-black shadows play on his face as the torchlight flickers. His eyes are liquid and almost eerily bright. The damp strands of his bangs cling to his sweaty forehead and for just a heartbeat, Caine thinks of sweeping them back.

“Don’t spill any,” Caine says, the closest thing to a you’re welcome that feels right on her tongue.

Varian smiles like he knows a secret, even as he nurses his sides.

“Don’t chug it all in one go either.”

Varian takes the waterskin and swills slowly. Caine watches the guard hover through the bars and narrows her eyes.

“You can return to your post,” she informs him cooly. “You’re not getting this back.”

“Why, you harpy!” he spits heatedly.

Caine is unruffled. He’ll only open the cell door if he wants a fight and she’s not afraid to take him, even weaponless. She has nothing to lose, but everything to gain if she were to best him. She locks eyes with him and silently dares him to step inside, dares him to try to snatch that waterskin from this sick kid. Every harpy has razored talons.

The guard wisely steps down, muttering indignantly back to his post.

Varian removes his lips from the rim. “Do you want some?”

And Caine pauses, nonplussed.

He holds it toward her and she gives herself a rousing shake, lightly pushing it away.

“You need it more.”

With that, she returns to her bunk.

* * *

Varian is listless in the morning and it’s uncomfortable, really. She’s become accustomed to the presence of someone else. To the questions he barrages her with. To the scraping sounds of his formulas being scratched into the stone walls.

Caine goes about her exercise routine to distract herself from the discomfort of his present absence. When she’s through with that, she spends some time naming the centipedes in the wall.

They do not bring food today.

Probably because of the waterskin she stole last night, the greedy bastards.

If Varian notices, he doesn’t mention it. He seems pretty out of it. Barely acknowledges her during the day, doesn’t move much beyond collaring his coughs or rolling from one side to the other.

“That’s some really shitty luck,” she remarks at one point.

“Huh?”

“Getting sick on top of getting your ass kicked.”

She watches Lysander the centipede crawl into one of her tallies, its many legs skittering.

“Maybe I deserve it,” he mumbles.

“You don’t,” Caine says. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Didn’t I?” he asks wearily.

“Are you delirious? You’re not the traitor here, Varian. Nothing’s more treacherous than a kingdom who turns its back on its people. They’re supposed to be in service of us, not the other way around.”

“…yeah,” he exhales slowly.

“Relax,” Caine hums.

“In here?” Varian wearily raises a brow.

“Well, about your choices, at least,” Caine huffs out, drawing a hand back thorough her greasy, tangled hair.

What she wouldn’t give to wash it.

“You’re not a bad kid.”

“Told you to quit calling me that,” he sighs, but he sounds more tired than earnestly put out.

“You’re not a bad alchemist, then,” Caine says, smirking.

* * *

The coughing gets worse at night again.

Neither of them get much sleep. Varian can’t stop coughing, these fearsome fits taking hold with such a force, Caine’s halfway expecting him to turn blue. Even when he’s not coughing, he’s noisy. His breath is wheezy, leaden with congestion. And he rakes in these short, ratty gasps, audibly shallow.

He’s clawing at his ribs again, still doesn’t complain even though Caine’s sure it hurts. Tough thing he is. There’s a hell of a lot more than meets the eye with this one.

She rises and goes over, rests her hand on his shoulder to feel him shaking in the dark.

“I’m okay,” Varian insists once he gets a moment of breath.

Caine purses her lips. The heat coming off him burns her palm through the crusty fabric of his shirt. She doesn’t find it to be an encouraging sign. In this moment, she makes a decision.

She pulls away and saunters to the door, whistling loudly.

“Hey! Metal head!”

The same guard from the night before narrows his eyes.

“I won’t indulge you again,” he says.

“Well, what if I make it worth your while?” Caine purrs seductively.

He raises a brow. Varian continues trembling in the corner of her eye and any hesitation she might’ve had buries itself deep. Maybe she’s stupid for going out on a limb for this kid she barely knows, maybe it’s worth it to foster their alliance and maybe it doesn’t matter one way or the other anyway, because Caine has done much worse things.

She slides an arm through the bar and pumps her hand in a quick, suggestive motion. The guard’s face illuminates with interest and he scurries over like a squirrel with an acorn in sight.

“It’ll cost you,” she hums, low but serious. “The kid needs a decent blanket.”

“Very well. I can get you that, but you provide your end of the bargain first. I won’t be tricked again, harpy.”

Caine inclines her head in agreement, opens her hand beyond the bars.

He lowers his trousers and gruffly, she takes his member in her grasp. It feels foul, like a dead serpent against her skin. But there’s so little she can do for her cellmate, so she does it anyway. She jerks back and fourth, feels the disgusting thing pulsating in her palm.

The guard cums with a grunt and Caine lets go. They don’t look at each other as he yanks his trousers back up, tucks himself back it. He seems almost disgusted himself, like he wants to pretend he wasn’t just serviced by a thief.

He leaves without another word. When she turns back, Varian is staring at her. Caine jolts. She hadn’t thought he would notice, he seemed too feverish and burdened with ailment to be bothered.

“Why did you do that?”

“I guess I just wanted to see how far I could push him. We might be able to use him later, he’s a weak link.”

Varian seems skeptical, gives a small nod anyway before he’s overtaken by another fit.

The blanket the guard comes back with is speckled with fur and smells like stale hay. It must be a horse blanket from the barn. But it is also thick, and wooly, and warm, which is much more than the sheets in the cell.

She takes it and gently drapes it over Varian’s shuddering form.

He blinks up blearily and she twitches her lips. When she lies down in her own bunk, she faces the wall and tries not to think about what she’s just done. Skewering men has always been easier than screwing them, and even if she hadn’t gone that far, it’s still a blow to her pride.

But it was the only upper hand at her disposal in this place of ruin and stone.

Caine is so caught up in her thoughts, she doesn’t hear Varian approach. She only looks up when he’s right next to her, blanket it hand. Caine opens her lips but before she can speak, he’s drawing it over her.

He pinches the plaid corner and worms his way under it, his back pressed up against hers.

“It’s cold tonight. Let's share.”

“Okay,” she agrees.


End file.
